Pulling wild mountain thyme
by hobgoblin123
Summary: Not quite his usual self, the Hunter asks Damien whether he'd like to gather some herbs with him. Or whatever. Slash, but nothing explicit. Slightly crack.


**Pulling wild mountain thyme**

Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.

Credits: The folk song 'Wild Mountain Thyme' (also known as 'Purple Heather' and 'Will ye go, lassie, go?') was published by Francis McPeake in 1957. As its origins are much older, I hope ffnet will let it pass. The part about _man covets what he sees every day_ , on the other hand, is from 'The Silence of the Lambs' by Thomas Harris.

A/N: Well, I know that I had the very same setting before (twice?). Sorry for kind of repeating myself, if from a different angle, but I'm busy as hell at present. There's next to no time for writing, and so I had to pick something utterly unambitious and relatively easy to pen down out of the multitude of plot bunnies my muse chose to grace with with at the worst possible moment. The alternative would be no story at all for God knows how long. Sigh! To make matters worse, at least two of my next projects fall under the 'one of _those_ stories' category, so they won't be everybody's cuppa tee for sure... Whatever you may think about me and my writing, dear readers, please keep in mind that I'm trying my best under rather adverse circumstances and don't flame me. Oh, and it goes without saying that I'm not intent on glorifying alcohol and/or drug abuse in any respect.

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"Oh, the summertime is comin',  
And the trees are sweetly bloomin',  
And the wild mountain thyme,  
Grows around the bloomin' heather..."

Vryce yawned into his glass of ale. After leaving Allesha Huyding's house in the deep of night, he had thought that Gerald would stick his nose into Zen's notes till the rising dawn forced him to take shelter, but the adept had done nothing of the sort. His face shuttered, he had handed him their booty and departed into the dark without deigning to brief him on his plans. Damn him!

At first, he had contemplated returning to the modest room he had rented in order to catch some sleep, but had thought better of it in the end. Even a priest of the One God needed a bite every now and then, and considering that his throat still felt completely parched, a beer or two certainly couldn't hurt, either. As the Coach and Horses was the only watering hole far and wide serving halfway decent pub grub all night long, he had headed towards the establishment he had once visited with his old flame Ciani what felt like an eternity ago.

What he hadn't expected was that the landlords were wont to hold a sing-along on Saturday nights. Even at past twelve o'clock the premises were still packed, and slowly but surely the noise was starting to grate on his already rattled nerves. Not that the music wasn't good. The folk band playing old songs from their mother planet Earth knew their stuff, something the thunderous applause, screams for an encore and happy faces all around him could testify to, but his own heart was heavy with grief. Thirty measly days from now on, and Gerald's reprieve would run out. If he managed to live that long, to be precise. Even leaving their arch enemy Calesta and the Unnamed out of the picture, his sudden obsession with all those doomed attempts at Working the earthquake surge didn't bode well, didn't bode well at all.

The mere idea of Tarrant dying for good, just to suffer eternal punishment at the hands of his merciless 'benefactor' was enough and to spare to make his toes curl in his boots. He wasn't quite sure how it had come to pass, but the man had grown on him over the last years until a loathsome enemy to be wiped off the face of Erna at the soonest possible moment had turned into a valuable ally first and then into a fire-forged friend, as unlikely as it may seem. Maybe he had lost his marbles, but the world would be poorer without Gerald at his side to annoy the hell out of him at least once a day.

"May I take a seat?"

So deeply lost in thought that he had failed to notice the familiar chill heralding the arrival of the Hunter, Damien very nearly choked on his beverage. "Yeah. Sure," he muttered when he could get some air into his lungs again at long last. "Since when do you bother asking for my permission? And what the hell have you been doing that long, if I may ask? One should think you've got more important things to do than roving about in the streets."

"My, my, how can anybody be in a foul temper on a night as beautiful as this?" the adept chuckled. "If I were you, I'd follow my example and have a look at the starlit sky for a while. It might improve your mood."

Vryce's eyes narrowed into slits of suspicion. Something certainly was very odd about Tarrant. Sitting down, the man usually grace incarnate had almost missed the chair and, trying to regain his equilibrium, knocked over a thankfully empty glass. In itself, his utterly unwonted clumsiness might be nothing to fret about. After all, his companion had gone through a lot lately, and it wasn't altogether surprising that he hadn't fully recovered yet.

But there was more to it. Since his return from hell, an almost palpable cloud of despair had been hanging over the adept. For the first time ever, he had come damn close to giving up and accepting his fate without so much as a whimper of protest. Utter defeat had turned into a grim determination over the last hours that was only marginally more comforting, as far as Damien was concerned, but at least it was in tune with his character. Seeing that epitome of pride, refinement and goddamn stiff-assedness lounging in his chair now as if he had knocked back more than just a couple of stiff drinks in the course of the evening, tapping his foot to the music with a blissful smile on his lips on the other hand - it was unsettling, to put it mildly.

The warrior knight felt his insides twisting into a tight knot of apprehension. "Gerald, are you all right?" he forced out between clenched teeth.

"Oh yes, I'm _peachy_ , as they say nowadays. Why do you ask?"

"Why? God gracious, man, just look at yourself! You're unsteady, can't even sit straight, let alone that I've never seen you showing the slightest interest for something so profane as popular melodies. Or heard you using buzzwords like 'peachy', for that matter. What the heck is going on with you?"

"I like music, Vryce. Always have. In my time at Gannon's court, I composed several court dances myself. But now I'd rather you shut your mouth for a few minutes. The song was quite famous in the north when I was young. Brings back old memories."

At the very next moment, the Hunter closed his eyes and started to hum along the tune, a dreamy look on his face. Aghast, Damien gaped at the incredible scene. Was this the very creature who had tortured and killed thousands of women without feeling a shred of remorse? Who had used unsuspecting innocents as simulacra on more than one occasion, cold-bloodedly sending them into certain death? It was hard to believe at present. The candlelight casting a semblance of life over his delicate features and his body utterly relaxed, he looked so very human that the warrior knight could barely swallow past the lump forming in his throat.

In order to keep himself from bawling all over the place like a complete and utter fool, he gulped down a mouthful of ale and focussed on the ongoings on the small stage no more than twenty feet away. After a last encore that almost brought the house down, the 'Revivalists' finally called it a night. Watching them giving some autographs in-between stowing away their instruments was only of limited interest to him, and so he redirected his gaze to the man he had gone to hell and back for, just to find himself under the scrutiny of a pair of dazzling silver eyes. "I'm just wondering, Vryce," Tarrant said softly. "Have you ever thought of pulling wild mountain thyme with me?"

"If I... what the hell are you talking about? For the life of me, I don't even know what the stuff is."

"Thymus Vulgaris, Thymus Praecox and so on and so forth. An evergreen herb of the mint family, used on Earth for medical and cooking purposes if I'm not completely mistaken. It's quite similar to our..."

"Don't you give me a lecture on a vulking plant, Gerald! I couldn't care less about botany right now. What happened to you out there? You clearly aren't yourself."

Tarrant raised an elegantly arched eyebrow. "How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine? Nothing _happened_ to me. In fact, it was rather the other way round."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" the warrior knight asked perplexedly. "Come on, man, spit it out! I'm sick and tired of having to worm everything out of you."

"Don't be naive, Vryce. It doesn't suit you. A lot of things have changed lately, but the basic parameters of my existence are still the same."

Due to being on his fourth glass of ale, it took Damien a while to comprehend the hidden meaning behind the Hunter's calm words, but when the penny finally dropped, he shot to his feet, bristling with anger. "I can't believe it," he roared, utterly oblivious to the quizzical glances all around him. "As soon as you're up and about again, you lose no time in appeasing your sick appetites. Is that the thanks for dragging your sorry butt back from hell? Son of a bitch! I should have left you there to rot, fool that I..."

"You know what I am," the Lord of the Forest cut him short, a flash of impatience passing across his striking features. "What I have to do in order to stay alive, or what counts for 'alive' in my state, so kindly spare me your tirade. And now sit down and stop yelling at me. I haven't killed yet tonight, but if you continue to draw unwanted attention, I may be forced to defend myself against a lynch mob. You won't like that."

His ruffled feathers somewhat smoothed by Tarrant's implied admission that he had let his latest victim live for whatever reason, Damien obeyed, albeit grudgingly. "So you showed mercy for once if I understand you correctly. Not that I'm not grateful for it, mind, but why going on a hunt at all? Wasn't what Karril gave you enough?"

"A few measly canteens of blood? He meant well, but it only served to reawaken the old hunger. Don't ever underestimate it. It's powerful beyond mortal reckoning."

Registering the strange mixture of loathing and longing in the adept's silken voice, Damien couldn't help but shuddering. "And so you lost control. Gave in to the temptation and helped yourself to a late-night snack," he muttered at long last, feeling slightly queasy at the thought.

"Just so. As things went, I was so eager to sink my teeth into my chosen prey that failed to check the quality of what she had to offer first, something that hasn't happened to me since the early days after my transformation. She must have drunk at least half a bottle of the most awful rot gut available on the black market, but that wasn't the worst of it. Combining a shot of Mindblow with alcohol is next to suicidal, Vryce. By taking a few ounces more, I might have done her a favour."

"But you didn't. Why?"

"That's none of your concern," Tarrant shrugged off his question. "But let's get back to the point. What about pulling wild thyme with me? Would you be interested?"

"In going a roving with you in the mountains, to gather some weird little herb? Well, God is my witness that I've heard stranger things since I've teamed up with you, but..."

An expression of genuine human humour, the adept's smile was miles away from his usual sneer. "You shouldn't always be so literal-minded, Vryce. Although undertaking a botanical expedition with you has its appeal, it's something a bit more... special I'm suggesting. Didn't you listen to the song? _'I will build my love a bower, By yon pure crystal fountain, And on it I will pile, All the flowers of the mountain...'_ Still totally in the dark? Then let me give you a hint: a hidden spot somewhere in a valley, two young sweethearts far away from prying eyes... what do you think that bower would be used for? Just for taking a nice little nap? I don't think so."

Half a ton of explosives going off right next door couldn't have shaken Damien more. "But Gerald, you... that's a bad joke, right?" he spluttered, his hazel eyes wide with shock. "The way things are, you can't have ever seriously thought of.. of..."

"The idea occurred to me. With regard to the fact that acting on my desires would have been tantamount to courting death at my advanced age, I let the matter rest. But the rules have changed now. The compact binding me is broken, so there's no reason why we shouldn't give it a try."

"Like hell we will! Just in case you've conveniently forgotten, we're both male!"

"I have to admire your keen perception," the adept retorted sarcastically. "Unless you used your limited skills as a sorcerer for triggering certain physiological modifications since I last saw you naked, it goes without saying that we're the same gender. So what?"

"Are you kidding? I've never been into men, and as for you, you were even married and sired three children back in the Revivalist period, for God's sake. That counts for 'straight' in my book all right."

The Lord of the Forest snorted. "Your book isn't necessarily congruent with reality. Let me assure you that I've always preferred to keep my options open and can find pleasure just as easily with a man as with a woman. Perhaps even more so. My offer still stands. Take it or leave it."

When Damien just continued to stare at him, his mouth hanging slightly ajar, Tarrant leaned closer with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes the warrior knight wouldn't have thought him capable of. Like a great many other things, for that matter. "The night isn't getting any younger, Vryce," he whispered. "With the dawn no more than three hours away, I'd rather not waste any more time on fruitless debates. But maybe you need an incentive first. A nudge into the right direction, so to say."

Before he could do so much as blink, the Hunter kissed him. It wasn't a chaste peck as things went, not by a long shot. When a cold but rather skilled tongue forced entry and started to plunder his mouth with utter abandon, Damien found himself almost painfully hard all of a sudden. The ferocity of his reaction shook him to the core. On their long voyage back to the eastern lands, there had been certain bizarre dreams involving pulling Tarrant down onto the bare planks and fucking him senseless, but he had written them off as outgrowths of a bad case of hormonal overdrive. After all, his sexual life had taken a considerable turn for the worse since their arrival in Mercia, and wasn't it said that man coveted what he saw every day? Or rather every night in their particular case? But this was different. Real. If he played along, he wouldn't make a mess in his briefs like the dozens of times aboard that miserable crate he'd rather not see ever again. He'd go where he had never gone before, nor thought he ever would. Somehow, the mere idea scared the living daylights out of him.

Suddenly the adept broke the kiss and drew back. "What do you think about my proposal now?" he breathed, a strange light shining in his eyes. "Are you willing to broaden your horizon, or shall we maintain the status quo? It's up to you."

For a few seconds, Damien felt sorely tempted to beat a hasty retreat and to hell with sailing into utterly uncharted waters. But then he remembered how soft Tarrant's skin had felt under his fingertips in his dreams, the thrill when the man had moaned his name in the throes of passion, his eyes closed in rapture, and he made his choice without thinking twice. "Oh, what's the use! I suppose it can't be worse than some of the crap I've been through already, if you know what I mean," he grumbled with feigned annoyance. "But I draw the line at having it off with you in Karril's storage cellar. No chance in hell that I'll allow the vulking bastard to watch me making a spectacle of myself."

Neither of them spoke a single word on their way to his lodgings. The guesthouse tucked away in a narrow side lane was dark and quiet, something Damien was deeply grateful for. In the state he was in, he wasn't altogether keen on encountering nosy questions and furtive glances.

In spite of his heebie-jeebies, he grinned at the chorus of snorting, snuffling and wheezing greeting them on the second floor. Not that he was particularly fond of snoring neighbours, but the sounds were so utterly normal in a world which seemed to have gone crazy that he felt his heart lighten a bit.

Inside his room, he was just about reaching for the roller blind when Tarrant tripped over God knew what and stumbled against him. The impact knocked him off balance as well, and they landed on the mattress in a tangle of limbs. "How very convenient," the Hunter purred like an overgrown tomcat. "As I'd rather not bend your mind to my will tonight, I was suspecting that it might take me a fair amount of sweet-talk to get you into bed with regard to your reservations. But it seems that my little... mishap saved me the effort."

"Well, good for you, but are you really sure that this is a wise thing to do? You're still stoned as hell, no pun intended, and I don't want to take advantage of that. Why not wait till tomorrow? If you haven't changed your mind by then, we could..."

A cold index finger on his lips silenced him. "Shush, Vryce. I am sure. Very. And now let me show you what you've missed out on so far."

 _Quite a lot as it turns out_ , Damien mused dazedly roundabout an hour later. He hadn't thought that somebody as dominant and used to taking what he wanted and to hell with everybody else as the Hunter would prefer to be at the receiving end of the matter, but evidently he had barked up the wrong tree. It hadn't been his only false estimation of the night. Not by a long shot.

Considering that he had never bedded a man before, he had expected the whole thing to feel rather odd, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Questions of gender and sexual orientation had paled into insignificance when Tarrant had Banished their clothes with no more than a fleeting thought and pulled him atop his lean frame.

His newly minted lover had fit him like a custom-made glove, tight, slippery and utterly irresistible. The bliss of moving inside him had more than made up for the absence of certain feminine curves, and it hadn't taken long until their endeavours had come to a mutually satisfactory end. Having gotten the hang of it, the following encore had been even better, and he certainly wouldn't mind if Gerald suggested a repetition any time soon.

"I'm pleased that I managed to surprise you once again," the adept chuckled against his cheek. "As you see, it's never too late to learn. But you should rest now while a have a look at Mer Reese's notes. The dawn isn't far off."

"The way you've worn me out, I sure as hell could do with a nap. But there's something I'd like to know first, Gerald: Your stumble - was it real or one of your little tricks?"

Tarrant raised his head and cast him a sardonic look. "Let's just say that the effect of the mind-altering substances I consumed against my will wore off pretty soon. Being what I am has its advantages. Does that answer your question?"

"Scheming bastard," Damien growled. "But as your machinations resulted in the best sex I've had in my life, I'm not inclined to complain."

A broad grin plastered on his face, he closed his eyes and gave in to his exhaustion at long last. Just before sleep overtook him, he wondered at which exact point in time the inhuman cold radiating from the Hunter's body had stopped bothering him, had turned from being a soul-chilling reminder of their vast differences to something strangely comforting, but then darkness enshrouded his mind, and he knew no more.


End file.
